NYC NOW - December 7, 2023 : Evening Roundup

Episode Date: December 7, 2023

Staten Island will get $12 million to mitigate the harms of the opioid epidemic. Plus, WNYC’s Michael Hill and Charles Lane dig into reporting that Eric Adams’ 2021 campaign "potentially hid” a fundraiser from another construction company. And finally, WNYC’s Sean Carlson talks with Matt Deodato about effective ways to mitigate New York City’s rat population.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. I'm Jene Pierre. We begin on Staten Island, where an influx of money will be used to help mitigate the harms of the opioid epidemic. The Adams administration says $12 million will go to organizations providing treatment, housing, and employment assistance in the borough. The allocation comes from the billions in settlement money obtained by State Attorney General Letitia James, from companies. that manufacture, distribute, and sell opioids. Staten Island has struggled to get its share of the settlement money until now, since initial allocations went out through the city's public hospital network,

and the borough doesn't have a health in hospitals campus. In 2022, Staten Island had the second highest rate of overdose debts among its residents, behind the Bronx. Stick around. We'll be back after the break. The 2021 mayoral campaign of Eric Kempark, campaign of Eric Adams is under a lot of scrutiny, especially from federal investigators looking into the mayor and his relationship to the Turkish construction company KSK. Now, WMYC is reporting that the campaign potentially hid a fundraiser from another construction company. For more on this development, my colleague Michael Hill talked with WMYC's Charles Lane. Tell us about this mystery

fundraiser you found. Who organized this? We actually know quite a bit about it. It was organized by Rybeck Development, a Brooklyn construction company. Rybeck's owner, Sergei Reibbeck and his mother, Tatiana Rybeck, did most of the organizing and asking donors to attend. The event was at a Russian restaurant called Chateau de Capiton in South Brooklyn. It was on election night in 2019, and we know that Adams attended. There were about 40 to 50 people, said he did around a large table, and the food was served in a Russian family style, where everyone just passes the dishes around. Attendees were strongly encouraged to donate $1,000, and Ryebeck was intent on filling the room. However, according to interviews and records, the Ryebeks actually started fundraising a year

earlier, as near as we can tell. They bundled and gave to Adams about $71,000, $41,000 of which was in potential public matching funds, in other words, tax dollars. And this is the second construction company. The first one we heard about is KSK, which is being investigated along with the top fundraiser for Adams, Briano Suggs. And we should clarify, Adams and Suggs have not been accused of any wrongdoing. But how is this Ryeback event different from the KSK fundraiser? Foremost, we don't detect any hint of foreign money. KSK is reportedly being investigated in relation to donations from overseas.

While Ryebeck has a lot of Ukrainian and Russian connections, no one has suggested to us that the donations came from outside the U.S. U.S. Second, whereas the KS.K event appears to have been documented poorly, the Rybeck event wasn't documented at all. By looking at records, it just doesn't exist. And even looking creatively, it's really hard to see the donation clusters. It's only by making dozens of phone calls that we're able to piece things together.

The other important thing about the Rybeck event was that it happened very early in the election cycle, where $70,000 can make a big difference. What did Adams and Ryebeck have to say about this? The Adams campaign declined to get into specifics because they are under federal investigation and still being audited by the campaign finance board. However, they do have a record of the event at the restaurant on this particular day. Sergei Ryebeck was a bit more standoffish with us and refused to answer questions. Here's a bit of the interaction. I don't know anything about anything.

I don't contribute personally. So I... That's contrary to her list that the... Adams campaign has. Maybe. I don't know. I have no comment. My comment is I have no copy. He went on to say that his vendors and employees donated of their own goodwill and that he did not compel them. Charles Adams has had a lot of fundraising questions raised related to the 2021 campaign. I'm thinking of the six indictments this past summer for alleged straw donations. There's, of course, the FBI searches in relation to KSK. What's the common thread here?

You know, it's hard to say. With the Rybeck and and KSK events, it could just be poor record keeping or it could be something more intentional. In looking at the finance reports, there appears to be a lot of money, not just from the Ryebex, but a lot of money coming from networks that appear bundled together. However, these bundlers are almost never disclosed. The campaign has articulated that it has a different interpretation of what needs to be disclosed as bundled and that it is still being audited by regulators. I talked to election lawyer Sarah Steiner about the KSK and Ryebeck events and she sees a pattern developing. You see one mouse, you have one mouse, but you see two mice and you've got mice. If this is a pattern of donors to the campaign and the campaign, this is problematic. And as you said, Charles, because these are public matching funds, these are tax dollars at work here, right? Yep.

That's WMYC's Charles Lane, talking with my colleague Michael Hill. Everyone who lives in New York City, New York City. probably has a cringy story to share about rats. But politicians have been vexed with the problem of how to control those persistent rodents. Matt Diadado is a New York City native and the owner of urban pest management. He's known for his effective rat killing method of shooting carbon monoxide into rat nests. WMYC's Sean Carlson talked with Diadado about every New Yorker's least favorite neighbor. What do you want to hear from city officials on how to help control the rat population?

Well, I think the city is taking the positive steps that they need to, with the garbage pails being mandated, the pickup times being changed to a degree. I would like to see the city get involved with what we do in a larger scale, putting more feet on the ground, if you will. We have machines that have been proven to be very effective, more effective than any kind of poison or denticides or snap traps or glue boards or baiting stations have ever done. before. So this method is pumping carbon monoxide into burrows in sidewalk tree pits. It's been done on the Upper East Side. Tell us more about it. And, you know, I think when people hear pumping carbon monoxide into Ness, is that ethical? These units can be mobilized. They can walk. We bring them up and down city blocks. Canvass, multiple areas of, you know, square miles on New York City. And they find an area that's infested. These hoses go down into the...

the borough. There's no carbon monoxide being escaped outside the dirt. It's actually being pumped into the burrow underground. The rodents that are living in the dens are basically going to sleep. It's the same thing that would happen to us. The carbon monoxide becomes heavier and replaces the oxygen levels and their bodies basically first fall asleep and they go into renal organ failure. And that's how they die. Unfortunately, there are occasions that the colonies are large and some of the larger rats try to escape. And that when that happens, that's when it gets a little different because we have to stop that. So you have 40 years of pest control experience. In that time, what have you learned about rats in New York City? And why are they so hard to get rid of?

I actually admire the rats. They're the ultimate survivor. They adapt to almost any climate situation you throw at them. I seen rats do things that I just shake my head and said, wow, I thought I or everything. The rat population right now is something I've never seen before and the way the public has now dealt with them. I mean, people used to scream, jump on cars and jump on benches. People are basically walking around them, shooing them away with their feet. It's a whole different atmosphere in a sense of people more getting used to them because they're so common. A lot of things could be contributing to that. We have these new food sheds, we call them, on the streets for the restaurants, which are, you know, wood frame with plywood flooring.

Also raised about 60 inches off the ground. So the rats are nesting underneath these platforms. So they have a lot of harbaging and a tremendous amount of food source. Also, winters have been a lot milder. We've been having very little snow. So that all contributes to these populations growing and being the way they are today. I'm sure you're aware. Mayor Adams appointed the same.

city's first rats are, right, to address the rat population? What do you think of that? I don't know any program that I've seen out in the city. I don't see any kind of advertisements about, look at what the city is doing to help. You know, and how many community parks have reached out to me and said, we have no funding, we have no money, we're all volunteers. That Peck Street Slip Park is infested with rats. If you look around the grounds and you look around all the bushes. There's holes. And at night, that whole area comes alive with rats. And they're like, how, you know, is this being, like, neglected by the city and the parks department and everyone else? It's such a huge tourist thing. They get frustrated and they're like, where's the rats are?

Why isn't she down here? Why do we have to reach out to you? They are saying, nothing's getting done. I don't know how you get in touch with her. Why she isn't reaching out to, like, guys like me saying, hey, you know, let's get you and like 20 other companies out in the ground and let's get these programs started. We'll give you the machinery. We'll work out budgeting. And let's get the city back into some kind of sanitary condition. That's Matt Diadado, owner of urban pest management, talking with WNYC's Jean Carlson. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WNYC. Catch us every weekday, three times a day. I'm Jene Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.